Privacy Policy

Last updated: 1 September 2026

This policy explains how GlassWall (“GlassWall”, “we”, “us”) collects, uses, shares, and protects your personal data when you use the GlassWall mobile app, glasswall.app, and the club administration console used by participating clubs and their staff (together, the “platform”) — a service for booking padel courts, matches, and coaching at clubs in the United Arab Emirates. It is written to meet the UAE Federal Decree-Law No. 45 of 2021 on the Protection of Personal Data (the “PDPL”).

Who we are (data controller)

GlassWall is operated by Alexander Boulos, based in the United Arab Emirates, who is the data controller responsible for your personal data — meaning the person who decides why and how it is processed. You can reach us at support@glasswall.app for any question about this policy or your data, to exercise any of the rights set out below, or to reach the person who handles data-protection requests.

Information we collect

• Account details — your name, username, email address, phone number, and profile photo, provided when you create or update an account. If you sign in with Apple or Google, we receive the name and email address you approve on their consent screen.
• Activity — your bookings, match participation, results, skill rating and rating history, coaching sessions, and any packages or credits you hold, generated as you use the platform.
• Payment information — payments are processed by Stripe. We never see or store your full card number; we keep only what Stripe returns (the card brand, last four digits, and a secure token) so a card you choose to save can be reused for future bookings. We keep our own record of each payment, refund, and charge for accounting.
• Device data — a push-notification token for your device, and basic technical logs (such as IP address and app version) kept for security and troubleshooting.
• Usage and diagnostic data — which screens and features you use, and technical details of any crash or error (device type, app version). This is recorded against your internal account identifier, not your name, and is used to fix faults and improve the app — never for advertising.
• Support communications — messages you send to support@glasswall.app.

Why we use it and our legal basis

Under the PDPL we process personal data only where we have a lawful basis to do so. We rely on the following:

• To perform our contract with you (PDPL Article 4) — creating and managing your account, taking bookings and payments, organising matches, and maintaining skill ratings.
• With your consent — sending optional communications and, where required, transferring your data across borders. You can withdraw consent at any time.
• To meet our legal obligations — keeping tax, accounting, and transaction records required by UAE law.
• To protect our legitimate interests and yours — keeping the platform secure, preventing fraud and abuse, and responding to support requests.

We send booking and payment confirmations, reminders, and other service notifications by push and email. You can control notification preferences in the app’s settings. We do not sell your personal data, and we do not use it for third-party advertising.

Who we share it with

• The club you book with sees your name, contact details, and booking information so it can operate your session.
• Other players in a match you join can see your display name, profile photo, and skill rating.
• Service providers that process data on our behalf under contract, each receiving only what it needs:
  • Stripe — payment processing and card storage.
  • Supabase — database hosting and authentication.
  • Resend — delivery of transactional email.
  • Sentry — crash and error diagnostics. It receives technical details of a failure (device type, app version, the internal account identifier); it is configured not to collect IP addresses or the contents of your requests.
  • PostHog — product analytics, to understand which parts of the app are used and where people get stuck. It records events such as “booking started” against the internal account identifier. We do not use it for advertising, and session recording is not enabled.
• Authorities, where disclosure is required by applicable law or to protect legal rights.

International data transfers

Some of our service providers store and process data outside the UAE, which is a cross-border transfer under PDPL Article 18:

• Supabase hosts our database and authentication in India (region ap-south-1).
• Resend processes transactional email in the European Union.
• Stripe may process payment data in the United States and other countries where it operates.
• PostHog processes product-analytics events in the European Union.
• Sentry processes crash diagnostics in the European Union and the United States.

Where the destination country has not been recognised by the UAE Data Office as providing an adequate level of protection, we rely on appropriate safeguards — such as contractual data-protection clauses with each provider — or on your explicit consent, as permitted by the PDPL. By using the platform you consent to these transfers for the purposes described above.

Cookies and similar technologies

The GlassWall marketing website (glasswall.app) sets no cookies. We run no advertising or cross-site tracking scripts anywhere on the platform, and we do not sell your data.

The mobile app stores your sign-in session on your own device so you do not have to log in every time you open it. The club administration console sets a single session cookie for the same purpose. Both are strictly necessary to keep you signed in, and both are cleared when you sign out.

We use the diagnostics and product-analytics providers named above to keep the platform working and to see which parts of it people actually use. These are measured against your internal account identifier rather than your name or email, they are never used to target advertising, and session recording is switched off. Where a feature of this kind is not currently switched on, we still name it here so this page stays accurate whenever it is.

Deleting your account — what is and is not removed

You can delete your account from Settings → Delete account in the GlassWall app. If you can no longer sign in, see glasswall.app/delete-account. Deletion is immediate and cannot be undone.

We want to be precise about what deletion does, because “delete” is often used to mean more than a platform actually does.

What we remove

We clear the fields that identify you as a person from your profile: your name, username, email address, phone number, profile photo, push-notification token, notification preferences, home club, and the link to your Stripe customer record. Your display name becomes “Deleted player”. Your saved cards are detached and your Stripe customer record is deleted. Your upcoming bookings are cancelled, with refunds applied under the club’s normal cancellation rules. Your account is disabled so it can no longer be signed into.

We also permanently delete, rather than anonymise, the records that exist only to describe or communicate with you: your notification history, your match invitations, any support or front-desk conversations you have had with us and the messages in them, and any notes or context our support tools had recorded about you.

We also release your sign-in identifiers. Your phone number is unbound from the account and any Google or Apple sign-in connection is removed, so the same number or social account can be used to register again. A returning player is treated as an entirely new user: you complete the self-assessment again and your previous skill rating is not carried over.

The one copy of your name, email, and phone number that we keep

Clearing those fields from your profile would leave your payment and booking records attached to nothing but an internal identifier — so if you later asked us about a charge, or an authority asked us about a named person, we would be unable to answer. Before we clear your profile we therefore copy three fields — your name, email address, and phone number — into a separate, restricted record, together with the date of deletion. It exists solely to connect a name to the financial records we are required to keep.

That record is not visible in the app or to club staff; it is reachable only by us, and only for that purpose. We keep it for seven years from the date of deletion — the period we retain the associated accounting records under UAE tax and commercial law — after which it is deleted automatically. It does not prevent you registering again with the same number or email.

If you never got past sign-up — no bookings, no payments, no matches — there are no financial records to connect anything to, so no such record is created and your account is erased outright.

What we keep, and why

Deletion does not remove your activity from our database. Your bookings, match participation and results, payments, packages, and rating history remain, still attached to the same internal account identifier — a randomly generated ID that is not derived from anything about you. Twenty-eight database columns across twenty-four tables reference your profile. Apart from the records listed above that we delete outright, the deletion routine strips the profile record and leaves the rest in place.

Your profile record is kept in a stripped-down state and continues to hold, principally:

• the internal account identifier, and the dates the account was created and joined;
• your skill-rating figures — the underlying rating and uncertainty values, displayed rating, peak rating, and letter grade;
• your rated match, win, and loss counts;
• a count of missed payments, and the date the account was deleted.

Your authentication record is also kept, in a permanently disabled state, together with its creation and last-sign-in timestamps.

We keep this for two reasons. Match and rating records are shared history: every player you have played against has a rating that was calculated from those matches, and removing your side of them would corrupt their history and their standing. Payment records, packages, and the club finance ledger are accounting records that we and the clubs are required to retain under UAE tax and commercial law, and we cannot delete them on request — they are kept for the statutory retention period and deleted afterwards.

The honest limit of this

We do not describe a deleted account as anonymous, because that would overstate it. An account identifier attached to specific matches, at a named club, on given dates, against named opponents can still be recognised by the people who were in those matches. Deletion removes your identity from public view in the app and ends our ability to contact you or identify you from the record on its own. It does not make the underlying history untraceable, and we would rather say so than imply a guarantee we cannot keep.

If you need something removed that this section says we keep, write to support@glasswall.app and we will tell you honestly whether we can, and on what legal basis, rather than acknowledging a request we cannot fulfil.

Data retention

We keep your data for as long as your account is active. Different records then run on three separate clocks, and we set them out separately rather than quoting a single retention period, because they are not the same clock and none of them governs the others:

• Financial records, and the name/email/phone record described above — seven years from the transaction or the deletion, then deleted automatically. This is the period we are required to retain the associated accounting records under UAE tax and commercial law.
• Dormant accounts with no activity and no club or coaching role — 24 months of inactivity, after which we email you a notice and delete the account 30 days later. Signing in during those 30 days resets the clock and discards the notice. See Accounts that are never used below.
• Rating and match history — kept indefinitely. The stripped profile and the activity attached to it are retained without a fixed end date, because other players’ ratings and match records are calculated from them and would not stay coherent without them.

Separately from those three, technical and security logs are kept for a short period and then discarded.

Accounts that are never used

If an account has been inactive for 24 months and has no activity attached to it — no matches, no bookings, no payments, and no club or coaching role — we delete it, so that we are not holding a name, email address, and phone number for no purpose. We email you first and wait 30 days; signing in at any point before the deadline cancels it and restarts the clock. Accounts with any playing history are never removed this way, and an account we cannot email is held for manual review rather than deleted. Because these accounts have no financial records, deletion here is a complete erasure — nothing is retained.

Your rights

Under the PDPL you have the right to:

• Access the personal data we hold about you and how it is processed (Article 11).
• Receive a portable copy of the data you provided, in a structured format (Article 13).
• Correct or erase inaccurate or unnecessary data (Article 14). The right to erasure is not absolute: it does not extend to records we must keep to meet a legal obligation, or to establish or defend a legal claim.
• Restrict or object to certain processing (Articles 15 and 16).
• Withdraw consent at any time, without affecting processing already carried out.

To exercise any of these rights, email support@glasswall.app. We respond within the period set by the PDPL. If you believe we have not handled your data properly, you may complain to the UAE Data Office.

Security and data breaches

Data is encrypted in transit, access is restricted by role, and payment credentials are held by Stripe, not by us. No system is perfectly secure, but we take reasonable technical and organisational measures to protect your data. If a breach occurs that poses a risk to your privacy, we will notify the UAE Data Office and, where required, affected users, in line with PDPL Article 20.

Children

The platform is intended for users aged 16 and over. A person under 16 may only use it through, and with the consent of, a parent or legal guardian, who is responsible for their use and accepts this policy on their behalf. If we learn that we have collected a child’s data without the required consent, we will delete it.

Changes to this policy

If we make material changes, we will update this page and note the new date above. Your continued use of GlassWall after a change means you accept the updated policy.

Contact

Questions about this policy or your data: support@glasswall.app.